Leeds to Chester Route (road bike)

[Glass Kites]

Hi, myself and my father in law (to be) are planning on cycling from Leeds to Chester in the next few weeks, and was just wondering if anyone else had tackled this? If so, do you have any advice on good routes, decent places to stop, roads to avoid etc?

I've done a quick Strava route and just allowed it to auto-route itself (but I know I've sometimes been stung by this by when routing to unknown places - sending me on miles and miles of gravel/dirt tracks etc).

Any advice greatly appreciated. P.S. doing the ride on road bikes.

 

[NorthernDave]

NCN Route 66 will get you to Manchester from Leeds - but its a wandering route and I've no idea if it is suitable for a road bike though.
A good chunk appears to be canal tow path which might (or might not) be rideable on a road bike.
I do know that I wouldn't take my road bike on lengthy sections of R66 on the east side of Leeds...

http://www.sustrans.org.uk/ncn/map/route/route-66

 

[400bhp]

Hi. I have done Manc to Batley to pick up a car and also done manc - chester several times.

I avoided Halifax and Huddersfield and went via Skye road just out of Rochdale & through the centre of manc. They route was pretty good. I have a gpx file somewhere (or you can see my route on strava).

From Manc to Chester I would head throgh the cheshire lanes (Manc-Timperley-High Legh-Marbury-Delamere. @nickyboy organised a forum ride from Manc-Llandudno which used a similar route and headed just north of chester centre, so he could provide a gpx route for you (or strava link). I also have a few strava links you could look at too.

 

[nickyboy]

No problem, I can let you have my full routing and you can take whatever bits are useful to you. As mentioned, this is a Manchester City Centre - Llandudno route that skirts around the North of Chester. So only some of it may be useful to you. Here is the route link

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/6878088

You've got to get over the Pennines somewhere and cycling through Greater Manchester is a bit crap so you've got either N of Manchester (that I don't know so well) or S of Manchester (that I know very well). I could easily sort out a S of Manchester routing to tie into that ridewithgps; let me know

 

[MartinQ]

Dropping down from Manchester to ~Ashley would take you onto route 70 which would bring you back to Chester
http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/53.2901/-2.5468&layers=C

 

[Glass Kites]

Thanks for everyones input. I think I'll work something out using @NorthernDave s suggestion of the R66, as it seems a LOT flatter than my original route. Then taking @nickyboy s route for the Manc > Chester leg.

Hopefully my tyres can handle the R66 route, if not there seems to be quite a lot of roads running parallel which we can always nip onto.

 

[Glass Kites]

No problem, I can let you have my full routing and you can take whatever bits are useful to you. As mentioned, this is a Manchester City Centre - Llandudno route that skirts around the North of Chester. So only some of it may be useful to you. Here is the route link

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/6878088

You've got to get over the Pennines somewhere and cycling through Greater Manchester is a bit crap so you've got either N of Manchester (that I don't know so well) or S of Manchester (that I know very well). I could easily sort out a S of Manchester routing to tie into that ridewithgps; let me know

Thanks @nickyboy , got most of the route sorted now. Although could do with some advice with getting from Oldham to Dunham Massey/Altrincham (going south of Manchester as you advised)?

 

[nickyboy]

Thanks @nickyboy , got most of the route sorted now. Although could do with some advice with getting from Oldham to Dunham Massey/Altrincham (going south of Manchester as you advised)?

Oldham is about "2pm" if you imagine Greater Manchester is a clock. Altrincham is "8pm" so I would say just go through the middle. @400bhp has a gpx to get into the city centre I think. My gpx runs from Manchester Piccadilly train station to Altrincham (this is actually his routing too) and is a very efficient way to get out of the city.

Were it me I'd get to Huddersfield from Leeds. Then take the road over the tops to Greenfield. After that head into the middle of Manchester and hook up with my route out to Altrincham. The climb to Greenfield is OK, not too steep (but is exposed so it's hard work into a strong wind). Depends how you feel about the mileage to Chester. The R66 seems to add a quite a lot of miles. If you're happy with that then do it as it's pretty flat. If you'd like to reduce the mileage a bit then maybe go with my suggestion

 

[400bhp]

Here was my route to Batley

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/7922914

You'll just need to reverse it riding from Batley/Leeds

I realised that I avoided the city centreManc in the end, so actually this route is a pretty good way of getting to Altrincham (using a similar suggestion to @nickyboy 's Greenfiend suggestion (Skye Rd I mentioned up-thread).